The Boys in the Mail Room: A Novel

by Iris Rainer Dart

  Stan chose the new Rose and Barton offices his first day out. The building was two stories. On Ventura Boulevard in the Valley. Barton had given Stan a big enough budget to take an office in Hollywood, but Stan wanted to be frugal. To spend the money on the concerts. Showy offices were unimportant. The day the phone was hooked up he started making calls. Agents at William Morris who represented rock acts. Agents at GAC and at CMA. And Joe Rio in New York.

  Joe Rio was the Howard Hughes of rock 'n' roll. Stan knew that just from reading the trades. And from stories Barton told him. Rio was the agent for six of the biggest rock 'n' roll acts in the business. And all the up-and-coming acts wanted him to represent them.

  He was rich and eccentric and no one ever knew where to find him. He seldom arrived in his Manhattan office from his Chappaqua home before six in the evening. One rumor had it that he didn't want to be seen by anyone because he had a terrible weight problem and was self-conscious about his size. Another rumor was about his baldness. They said it took him all day to take that one very long hair that he'd grown, and string it around and around over the top of his head just right, to make it look as if he had more.

  Stan Rose put in a call to Rio one day in August, shortly after the Beatles concert. The call wasn't returned until October. In fact before the actual call he got a call to tell him the call was coming.

  "Rose and Barton Concerts."

  "Mr. Rose?"

  Shit. He was going to have to break down and get a secretary to answer the phone.

  "Uh . . . yeah. This is Mr. Rose."

  "This is Joe Rio's office."

  Joe Rio's office. Joe Rio, the legend, was calling him.

  "Yeah?" Stan said nervously into the phone.

  "Mr. Rio would like to speak to you."

  "Great!" Stan thought.

  "At six o'clock this evening, Los Angeles time," the voice went on. "Will you be in your office?"

  "You bet," Stan said.

  It was lunchtime but Stan wouldn't leave the office. What if Rio decided to call him earlier than six? Why had it taken Rio so long to call back? Stan went over and over in his mind the things he would say to Rio. Joe, I want to come to New York and meet you. I'd like to sit down with you and talk about the way Rose and Barton promotes a show and why you ought to work with us. I'll meet with you at your convenience. Shit, it was only one o'clock. Stan called a chicken place that delivered and asked them to bring some lunch. Thank God he had three telephone lines on a rotary so Rio could get through even if Stan was talking.

  Stan made a call to see how ticket sales were going for Butterscotch, a folk-rock group, who were such hot album sellers, Stan and Walter agreed to try to promote them at the new twenty-thousand-seat Colossus, a giant amphitheater in downtown Los Angeles.

  Then he called to set up a meeting with the manager of Clowns, a new group whose manager wanted Rose and Barton to use them as an opening act. Then he called to arrange for the catering company to bring a cake to the Butterscotch concert because the day of the concert was the lead guitarist's birthday. Then he called Barton on the set of Give 'em the Hook to remind him that the Butterscotch concert was next Monday night and to tell him he was waiting to hear from Joe Rio.

  "No shit!" Barton said. He was genuinely pleased. "The weirdo is finally going to return your fucking call."

  "I've got my whole speech planned," Stan said. "I'm going to ask him if I can come to New York and see him."

  "You'd better wear the ruby slippers on the trip, pal. The man never sees anybody."

  Stan didn't want to hear that. Rio had to see him.

  "I'm telling you, Stanley. All he's doing is calling to find out what you wanted. Don't be surprised if it turns out just to be his secretary who calls," Barton said. "I'll be at home at about nine tonight. Let me know."

  At nine that night Stan was on a plane to New York. He had struggled to keep busy all day. But when he ran out of calls to make he fell asleep on the sofa in his office. The phone rang exactly at six.

  "Rose and Barton Concerts," Stan said, trying to sound awake.

  "I like it that you answer your own phone."

  "Uh. . . who is this?"

  "It's Joe Rio, Stan."

  Stan tried to hold in his excitement. Now he was awake. Joe Rio. Joe fucking Rio. Rio's voice was higher than Stan imagined it would be, and he sounded very mellow and softspoken. Not like Oz the great and terrible, the way Barton described it.

  "How 'bout a meeting?" Rio said.

  "Uh. . . great. Sure. A meeting," Stan replied. "Where?"

  "Tomorrow. My house. Come in tonight. Check into a hotel. Take the ten-thirty train from Manhattan to Chappaqua tomorrow and I'll meet you at the platform. Later I'll take you back to the city."

  It sounded like instructions from one spy to another. It was all Stan could do not to jump up and down and cheer. Joe Rio was going to see him.

  The man in the vicuña coat stood alone on the Chappaqua platform so Stan figured it had to be Joe Rio. He couldn't look for a clue like the infamous piece of hair that wound around Rio's head, because the man was also wearing an Alpine hat.

  Several passengers got off the train at Chappaqua, but the man in the vicuña coat and Alpine hat walked directly to Stan and offered his hand to shake.

  "Joe Rio."

  "Stan Rose."

  Rio took Stan's arm as if Stan were a little boy and walked him down the steps to the street, where a limousine was waiting.

  "I don't drive," Rio said as the two men got into the back of the car, and the driver set off through the woodsy Chappaqua roads. Rio's home looked like a farmhouse, and it had huge windows overlooking the dozens of acres which were his back yard.

  Rio took Stan into a wood-paneled den where framed photographs of Rio and his rock groups covered the walls. A fire was already burning in the floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace, and a pot of hot tea had been mysteriously placed on a table in front of the fire.

  Rio had said nothing to Stan all the way to the house from the train. Stan wasn't a fan of small talk himself, so he was comfortable with the silence. After Rio hung their coats up and sat down across the table from Stan for tea, he finally spoke. Again his voice was soft and his manner very gentle.

  "I know a lot about you. I had to find out before I called you. About your father and your polio and your work at the television station in Florida. Also about your time in the mail room at Hemisphere Studios. People like you. They trust you and respect you and that's rare. I want to do business with you."

  Stan was flabbergasted. He remembered the time in the commissary at Hemisphere when Harold Greenfield asked him a question about why he wasn't going to Florida for homecoming, and he had been surprised that Greenfield knew where he'd gone to school. But Greenfield owned Hemisphere and Stan worked at Hemisphire and had filled out countless forms his first week on the job. Forms that contained revealing information. So that was explainable. But this. For Joe Rio to know all of that about him, and to tell Stan he wanted to do business with him when his business was so new. This was too much. Too good.

  "Why?" he blurted out.

  "There's not a promoter I trust to make sure my acts get the kind of treatment they need. I think you're different. Tell me about Barton."

  Stan had a funny feeling Rio already knew everything about Barton.

  "He's a sweet man," Stan said. "Sometimes he has a bad temper. But he's bright and energetic and basically good-hearted."

  Rio sipped his tea.

  "Do you want cookies?" he asked. "I didn't put any out because I'm dieting." He was very round.

  "No, thanks," Stan said. Rio didn't comment on Stan's description of Barton. In fact, it seemed as though he deliberately chose not to.

  "How was your flight?" he asked instead.

  The rest of the day was filled with the two men talking. They took a long walk on the grounds of Rio's estate, ate an elegant lunch, from which Mrs. Rio was absent because, as Rio explained, she was "detained in the city,"
and Rio told Stan stories about his youth.

  "I was a tenor," Rio said. "A little chubby boy with a gorgeous voice. First I sang in church and everyone cried and filled the collection plate. And then I sang at my parents' parties when anybody asked me to. And people would give me a dollar here. A dollar there. Well, finally my dad, who was nobody's fool, realized he could turn me into an attraction. You know? An act. So he invested in a couple of little suits for me, with dress shirts, little ties and everything, and before I knew what was happening I was singing at other people's parties. For money. Ten dollars a night sometimes. My father was an alcoholic," Rio said, "and he was spending all of the money to buy himself booze, but I didn't know it. I was too young. What I did know was that I was working for the money and not getting it. So one day I asked him where it was and he said, 'You're going to get the money, Joey. But right now you're still paying me off for the suits.' "

  Stan laughed and Rio laughed softly, too.

  Stan thought about Rio's Wizard of Oz imagine. The man was gentle and vulnerable.

  "I paid him off for the suits for ten years," Rio said, still smiling. "And then I was sixteen and I wanted to buy myself a car. I'd been working my tail off singing two or three parties a weekend and learning new music and I realized there was no money for me for a car or anything else. He had spent all of it."

  Rio looked into the fire probably remembering what happened next, but he never told Stan what it was.

  It had begun to rain outside and as Stan looked out the window he saw the limousine pull up in front of the house. Rio got to his feet.

  "I'll ride into Manhattan," he said, and got their coats. Stan looked at his watch. It was ten after five. If they left now, Rio would get to his Manhattan office at 6 P.M. That part of the legend was true.

  The driver pulled up outside the Warwick, where Stan had checked in last night, and Stan thanked Rio for seeing him.

  Rio patted Stan warmly on the back and looked at him for a long moment, even though the doorman at the Warwick was holding the car door open waiting for Stan to get out.

  "I'll return your calls much more quickly than I did the last one," Rio said. There was no smile. But there was a twinkle in his eyes. Then his face changed. "Be wary of your partner," he said finally. Stan didn't know what to say and Rio nodded as if to tell him to get out of the car. He did.

  He ran to his room to call Walter. When he got there the red message light on his phone was blinking and he called the message operator. Walter had called him. He returned the call right away. It was three o'clock in Los Angeles. Maybe Walter was at the studio. Stan couldn't wait to tell him everything. Everything but the last thing Rio said to him in the car. It seemed so strange. Walter was out. Stan called the airlines to make a reservation back. He'd go right away. There was so much to do. The Butterscotch concert was in three days.

  The backstage area at the Colossus was enormous. There was an elaborate lighting booth near the stage and down a hallway were dozens of large mirrored dressing rooms with full baths and showers and well-lit dressing tables. The acts loved to work there. Butterscotch was scheduled to come over from the downtown Los Angeles Holiday Inn right after the opening act went on, and the opening act, Lita Collins, was in her dressing room vocalizing. It was very professional. By seven o'clock Stan had been all over the place. Meeting with the box office manager, talking to the caterer and looking over the spread of treats the group would indulge in after the show. Stan even sampled the popcorn at one of the concession stands in the lobby.

  Walter was already there, too. Stan had seen him earlier wandering around the building. Give 'em the Hook was on a hiatus so he'd been in the office with Stan for the last three days, talking about the future, and talking about which of Rio's acts they should try to book while Rio was feeling so good about his visit with Stan. He also helped Stan field the dozens of phone calls that came in. Last-minute people hearing the show was sold out, asking for tickets and wanting backstage passes.

  The crowd backstage seemed to get bigger at every concert. Each act's entourage, and soon the entourages had their entourages. Hangers-on and groupies. Groupies were unbelievable. Little girls. Really young. Wearing revealing sexy outfits and outrageous makeup and unabashedly puffing on joints and being generally brazen. They approached everyone. Not just the acts. "How 'bout a blow job, Mr. Rose?" Dinny asked him at every concert. Dinny had the body of a ten-year-old boy. For a long time Stan thought she was a ten-year-old boy, till she wore a dress and high heels to one of the shows.

  "I can't, Dinny," Stan quipped. "I just gave away three and I don't have any left."

  Everything was right on schedule. Stan decided to walk down to Lita Collins' dressing room, to see if Lita's people knew where the buffet room was. Stan started down the hallway. He thought it was the one on the end of the hall to the left. He knocked lightly. There was no answer. Maybe she was in the john. He knocked again. Nothing. Stan turned the knob and opened the door and stopped to stare in surprise.

  Walter Barton stood, naked from the waist down to his ankles, where his trousers were bunched around his feet. And a girl Stan recognized as Honey, one of the groupies, was completely naked, on her knees sucking Barton's cock. The girl was obviously doing the trick that gave her her name. She had gobs of gooey honey all over her hands that she was spreading on Barton's cock and belly and thighs and then gobbling it off while she moaned. Barton was moaning, too. The little girl was nubile and pink and her straight long blond hair tossed from side to side as she went at Barton's body hungrily. The strangest part of the whole scene was the way it was reflected in every mirror. Dozens of tiny blond Honeys. A chorus of them. Now she was rubbing the honey on her breasts and pulling Barton's hands down to feel the gooey little girl body. And all the Honeys in the mirror were doing that. And all the Bartons were saying, "Oh, yeah, doll. Suck me off good."

  Stan knew he had to close the door. Yes, close the door. Why hadn't Barton locked the fucking door? But it was too late. Barton saw him. He opened his eyes just as Stan was about to close the door and saw him there. Watching him. Watching it all. Stan's heart was pounding. He was excited by the scene and afraid of what Barton would feel if he saw him. But Barton just smiled slightly and nodded to Stan as if to say, "Be with you in a minute," and the girl, Honey, kept on sucking and moaning. Stan closed the door and walked out to the backstage area.

  "Hah, there, Rose." Stan jumped. It was Arthur D. Blake, the man who'd built the Colossus and was its owner. Blake was a multimillionaire from Texas who had financial interest in several athletic teams and thought there wasn't a "decent goddamn facility" in Los Angeles, so ten years before he'd hired a well-known architect to design "a place that's fit for my boys to play." And within a year the majestic Colossus was standing.

  Blake was one of the first people Stan called to get the business underway. Blake met him for lunch at the Colossus Colonnade, a private membership dining club that was on the first floor of the Colossus. As Stan walked into the club with Blake, the maître d' and the waiters and the bartenders had all greeted Blake warmly.

  "Hah, boys," he said to them with his Texas drawl. And in a flash a drink was in front of him, and a salad was being mixed for the two of them, and even though Stan had been thinking about eggs all that morning, he let the maître d' put the salad at his place and the ground pepper on the salad, and ate it without objecting. Blake was talking about his policy at the Colossus.

  ". . . . and I like to help out you young guys. And you'll be helpin' me out. I think we have a lot to offer each other. But I'm telling you right here in this first meeting, I run a clean place here. I'm a God-fearin' man and I don't have any interests in no weirdos runnin' wild and rippin' my place apart. No, sir."

  The ground pepper was stuck in Stan's throat and his eyes were watering. But Blake thought he was upset. "Now, now," he said, "I know you're not like that, Rose. But I do know from experience there's a lot of Looney Tunes people out there."

  And now,
there he was at the Butterscotch show. Arthur D. Blake. Wandering around backstage. And he could have been the one who opened the door and saw Barton getting sucked off by Honey. With honey. Oh, Jesus.

  "Arthur," Stan said, extending his hand.

  "All sold out, buddy," Blake said grinning. "All sold out," he repeated. Stan started moving toward the gate that led into the arena as he talked, knowing Blake would walk along with him and be farther from the dressing-room area.

  "Yes. Yes. We're sold out." He was stalling, and over Blake's shoulder he saw Walter, fully clothed, walking toward them.

  "And it's going to be a great show," Stan promised Blake. "Lita Collins is a doll, and the boys are terrific."

  "Arthur!" Barton said warmly as he approached. Stan couldn't help but marvel at Walter's composed condition.

  "Hello, Big Wally," Arthur said, slapping Wally on the back. "Ah remember when this fella here was Big Wally," Blake laughed, "with his sidekick Animal! Tell the truth. Was that you doin' the voice of Animal?" Blake asked.

  Out of the corner of his eye Stan saw Honey coming down the hallway dressed in jeans and a sequined bandeau top. She stopped to talk to some of the other girls and never looked in the direction where Stan and Barton and Blake stood. Blake looked at his watch.

  "Well, there's no business like show business," he said, "so I'm gonna go find me a seat out there and watch. See ya both later!" he said. And walked out into the house. Stan watched Blake go because he couldn't look at Barton, but Barton walked up next to him and stood looking after Blake.

  "That son of a bitch Blake loves us, Stanley," Barton said. "You and me are gonna be real real big in the music business. Real real big."

  twenty-two

  Stan Rose was the one who suggested that David go to see Chuck Larson for a job. Stan called David the night he heard Davey was fired, which was after Mickey called the Rose and Barton office to tell Stan.

  "I don't want to work for an agent," David said.

  "But Larson's not like an agent, Arch," Stan said. "He's not short, he doesn't smoke cigars and I'll bet you anything he never said the words sweetie, chickie or baby in his life."